Easter is over again for another year and I’m left sick of the sight of cake and chocolate!  There’s still snow in the air and I’m seriously starting to wonder if it’s ever going to get above freezing.  Will Spring ever arrive?

All this cold weather meant that we’ve been indoors trying to amuse ourselves.  So the Easter weekend was a fairly crafty one.  We’ve been exploring the possibilities of my boxes of embellishments along with the contents of a craft planet goody bag,

Entertaining a pre-school child in the holidays, particularly in the current cold weather, can be a tall order.  But we just about managed by covering the kitchen table with ribbons, buttons, fun foam, felt and stickers.  My daughter raided the box bag for an egg box determined to make a box to keep chocolate eggs safe so she could share them at her friends birthday party!  She spent several hours happily singing along with the radio, sticking wild and wacky embellishments on to the box.

Another crafting day we took inspiration from our last play and language class, and made a lovely bunch of daffodils from fun foam and pipecleaners.  These simple flowers have to be one of the prettiest additions to the home!  And better still, a child can make them as there’s no glue needed.  We cut most of the shapes out by hand but I also experimented using a die-cutting machine and this works just as well, so long as you have some flower shaped dies!  This lovely bunch was split and flowers given to family members on Easter Sunday and they certainly brightened the dinner table.

Our simplest project was one I used to do as a child.  I’ve always kept things that looked useful and Easter egg boxes prove very useful indeed.  I keep the cut out circles where the egg stands and use them to draw round, making patterns and pictures.  I mentioned this to my daughter who obviously liked the sound of this idea.  She kept the circle from one of her eggs and used it to draw round.  She drew this fabulous caterpiller and then added the ladybird on its back.

This is definitely a technique we shall explore further!  I see birds, cats, rabbits, flowers….. the possibilities are endless and she can make these pictures all by herself without any interference (help) from me.

So the learning from this Easter weekend is to keep bits from Easter egg packaging and egg boxes, and always make sure to have fun foam (in a variety of colours) and pipecleaners on the house.  Hours of fun for a child and parent!

Happy crafting

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